{Fare Gone} Air France : IST - SJO $2,341 First Class$2,639 RT (mixed Business)
May 11, 2018, 3:46 am
#257
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May 11, 2018, 8:52 am
#258
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May 14, 2018, 3:59 am
#261
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All of the arguments for and against error fares have been discussed comprehensively in other error fare threads.
The arguments are that people will never be able to trust a fare again. Or how would anyone possibly know it's a mistake. And so on.
The answer is that it all depends. A fare of $1500 TATL might be fine in business class, even on a top tier carrier. A fare of $2600 on AF, that rarely, if ever, discounts that far, might give rise to some suspicion that the fare might be an error.
Airline process millions of tickets a day. What some people are proposing is that for the sake of a few error fares, no one should have their ticket issued for one, two or three days (allowing for time differences and weekends) while an airline checks the fare they are about to issue is error free. That would be unworkable.
AF has acted quickly here. In previous error threads people have complained the airline did't take action fast enough. They said 'if only the airline notified us in two days rather than two weeks it would have made things better'. Now AF acts in 2 days and people still complain.
The bottom line is very simple. If you have genuinely purchased a correct fare, it will be honoured. Either by the airline voluntarily, by contract law, or by consumer protection law. If you have purchased a fare which you suspect might be an error, your chances of being protected might be rather less. And that's fair enough. It's exactly how the law is supposed to work. It's there to protect and enforce rights, not to punish an airline.
The arguments are that people will never be able to trust a fare again. Or how would anyone possibly know it's a mistake. And so on.
The answer is that it all depends. A fare of $1500 TATL might be fine in business class, even on a top tier carrier. A fare of $2600 on AF, that rarely, if ever, discounts that far, might give rise to some suspicion that the fare might be an error.
Airline process millions of tickets a day. What some people are proposing is that for the sake of a few error fares, no one should have their ticket issued for one, two or three days (allowing for time differences and weekends) while an airline checks the fare they are about to issue is error free. That would be unworkable.
AF has acted quickly here. In previous error threads people have complained the airline did't take action fast enough. They said 'if only the airline notified us in two days rather than two weeks it would have made things better'. Now AF acts in 2 days and people still complain.
The bottom line is very simple. If you have genuinely purchased a correct fare, it will be honoured. Either by the airline voluntarily, by contract law, or by consumer protection law. If you have purchased a fare which you suspect might be an error, your chances of being protected might be rather less. And that's fair enough. It's exactly how the law is supposed to work. It's there to protect and enforce rights, not to punish an airline.
May 14, 2018, 5:08 am
#262
Join Date: Jan 2011
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How to draw the line what is a F "mistake"fare and what are promotion fares??? Where is the line??? 1999usd is "mistake" fare but 2000usd is not???What is for one person "mistake", is a promotion for other. Based on what some might presume that 2341usd for one way or 2640usd for round trip in F is an "mistake" fare? Especially when some big airlines offers long haul F even with lower prices from same region or continent.. The price AF published is a proper discounted fare, nothing else. They started to contact after 48hours but even worse is that they refused to fly people with next day tickets and cancel them and downgraded two classes automatically. For that they must be legally responsible, because their behaviour is illegal and against a proper business manner.
May 15, 2018, 4:52 am
#263
Join Date: Jan 2011
Location: Boston, MA, USA
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How to draw the line what is a F "mistake"fare and what are promotion fares??? Where is the line??? 1999usd is "mistake" fare but 2000usd is not???What is for one person "mistake", is a promotion for other. Based on what some might presume that 2341usd for one way or 2640usd for round trip in F is an "mistake" fare? Especially when some big airlines offers long haul F even with lower prices from same region or continent.. The price AF published is a proper discounted fare, nothing else. They started to contact after 48hours but even worse is that they refused to fly people with next day tickets and cancel them and downgraded two classes automatically. For that they must be legally responsible, because their behaviour is illegal and against a proper business manner.
It is not a "regular" mistake fare, like currency issues or forgetting a digit when you load fares. At least it was not obvious. And French law it is pretty clear on that : you can cancel a sale if there is a price mistake only if the customer was buying that product knowing it was an error, and I sincerely didn't. I have not given up yet and I am still discussing with customer service because for French customers protected by the French law, their case can easily be cracked. What plays in their favor is the fact that Justice is very slow and that no one would risk losing all their money from the ticket and spend lawyer money in pursuing that case in court.
The second thing that struck me is the way that was done. With no prior notice, all tickets have been reissued with a new booking class. Imagine you buy a nice pair of a high-brand leather shoes in a nice box at a discounted price, but pretty close to what you can get during Sales. You come back home the next day, and these have been replaced by a plastic bag with flip flaps, with a note saying that "sorry we made a mistake, so we broke into your house to give you what you paid for, but you can get a refund of the flip flaps to our shop upon request". This sounds just bad.
May 15, 2018, 5:10 am
#264
Join Date: Sep 2015
Programs: LH SEN; BA Gold
Posts: 8,402
I can only agree on that matter. When I booked it, I legitimately thought it was a promotion, or a fare alignment towards competitors, like we see Air France doing from other POS in a regular or permanent basis in La Premičre. And Emirates, for example, sells TUN-DXB-HKG in F for €2400.
And French law it is pretty clear on that : you can cancel a sale if there is a price mistake only if the customer was buying that product knowing it was an error, and I sincerely didn't. I have not given up yet and I am still discussing with customer service because for French customers protected by the French law, their case can easily be cracked.
May 15, 2018, 5:27 am
#265
Join Date: May 2018
Location: Prague
Posts: 46
I am currently in contact with my lawyer and discussing next step. I do not want to let airlines .... up with their customers. In my opinion, they should let travel passengers in First class if they bought a ticket for just one euro. They should be responsible for services they sell. In this case, it is obvious. The cheapest business class price between Europe and South America which I was able to find is 1700 EUR. I bought my first class ticket in the promo for nearly 2000 EUR. I think this is "standard" price and they should accept it once they confirmed my reservation.
In the Czech Republic courts are also slow but not much expensive. A few years ago people won their case against British Airways with cheap First class tickets to Mexico. They paid only half what we did. So if I will have a time, I will try to go to court. I am nearly hundred percent sure we will win because there was a precedent in the history.
In the Czech Republic courts are also slow but not much expensive. A few years ago people won their case against British Airways with cheap First class tickets to Mexico. They paid only half what we did. So if I will have a time, I will try to go to court. I am nearly hundred percent sure we will win because there was a precedent in the history.
May 15, 2018, 6:50 am
#266
Join Date: Jan 2011
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Frankly, I am ready. And I already spent the money. But before court, I need a formal refusal from the airline, that I still don't have, because I guess that was escalated after my last reply to Air France.
May 15, 2018, 7:00 am
#267
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Join Date: Mar 2008
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I am currently in contact with my lawyer and discussing next step. I do not want to let airlines .... up with their customers. In my opinion, they should let travel passengers in First class if they bought a ticket for just one euro. They should be responsible for services they sell. In this case, it is obvious. The cheapest business class price between Europe and South America which I was able to find is 1700 EUR. I bought my first class ticket in the promo for nearly 2000 EUR. I think this is "standard" price and they should accept it once they confirmed my reservation.
In the Czech Republic courts are also slow but not much expensive. A few years ago people won their case against British Airways with cheap First class tickets to Mexico. They paid only half what we did. So if I will have a time, I will try to go to court. I am nearly hundred percent sure we will win because there was a precedent in the history.
In the Czech Republic courts are also slow but not much expensive. A few years ago people won their case against British Airways with cheap First class tickets to Mexico. They paid only half what we did. So if I will have a time, I will try to go to court. I am nearly hundred percent sure we will win because there was a precedent in the history.
If you can find a court in Czechia that will hear a case regarding a ticket sold in Turkey (presumably) for travel from Turkey to either South America or South Africa on a French airline, then good for you.
However, if it is not so expensive to bring a case in Czechia, you can probably expect Air France to fight it.
(Just out of curiosity, regarding the BA fare you mention - which I presume was this one: [PREM FARE GONE] (First): BA, AA : PRG - CUN or MEX $799 - are you sure there was an actual court decision, or did BA (as I suspect) merely settle out of court?)
May 15, 2018, 7:01 am
#268
Join Date: Sep 2015
Programs: LH SEN; BA Gold
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The cheapest business class price between Europe and South America which I was able to find is 1700 EUR. I bought my first class ticket in the promo for nearly 2000 EUR. I think this is "standard" price and they should accept it once they confirmed my reservation.
I'm not sure why you speak in the plural. A decision by a French court forcing AF to honour the ticket of a customer suing in France will not be binding to Czech courts (and vice versa).
May 15, 2018, 7:05 am
#269
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May 15, 2018, 8:11 am
#270
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How could a person knows what MFFTR means when the first sentence in fare rules is First class full fare unrestricted with no word about economy class there? You can write any letters but sentences are what counts. Things should not be like someone in AF decided that their published price is too low, let's change the class. Great,what do we have? We can downgrade it to economy since we can make it fully flexible economy fare. Even for business class this price is too high for promotion. AF decided to go as low as they can, not only with downgrade but generally. If their only explanation is that:"Sorry, we published wrong rules". Then it should not be sufficient to downgrade after ticket was issued with decent amount of money received.
Last edited by Jaenks; May 15, 2018 at 11:29 am